Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

In her answer to the original question, my hon. Friend referred to pathfinders. How will the information that she obtains from them be shared publicly, and how will it inform her work towards legislation in that area?

[Sarah Teather]

We are trying to go through a process of active learning so that the lessons from the pathfinders do not go into a black box and are not looked at again, but are shared with other local authorities. Local authority groups have come together, so it is not necessarily the case that individual local authorities are working in isolation, but are working with parents’ groups and charities on the ground. We are keen to learn the lessons that they are looking at, and we will make sure that that informs our legislation in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree that the figures for attainment for children on free school meals and looked-after children are woefully inadequate at present. That is why we have introduced the pupil premium. I should also say that in the hon. Lady’s constituency per-pupil funding is higher than almost anywhere else in the country. A substantial amount of money is already going into her constituency, therefore, as well as a significant amount of money through the pupil premium, which will rise to £2.5 billion nationally by the end of the spending review period. I would therefore encourage her to ask her schools how they are spending that money, and I would be very pleased to hear the detail of some of the best practice being followed by them.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

My hon. Friend rightly sets out the benefits of the pupil premium. Does she agree that one of them is that it targets disadvantaged pupils wherever they are in the country, unlike general funding formulas, which the Government are looking at and which under previous Administrations have, perhaps, neglected some children in some parts of the country?

[Sarah Teather]

Absolutely. I represent an inner-London constituency so I see very high levels of deprivation there, but there are also high levels of deprivation in rural areas, which is often unseen either because it is in pockets or because people might perceive that because an area is leafier it must also be wealthier. Many rural schools, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, will benefit from the pupil premium and will be able to focus their efforts on raising the attainment of all their pupils.

Children with Special Educational Needs

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson]

That point is crucial, and it could represent a huge step forward. We are obviously focusing on younger people, and my experience as a constituency MP is that direct payment with personal budgeting has worked for social care; there is often an element of health care as well, but at the moment that cannot be provided through primary care trusts with a direct payment model. That is incredibly frustrating, and it is a barrier to getting a package that works for families. I have had that experience with families who are caring for older people, and I believe that lessons can be learned right the way across.

[Sarah Teather]

Absolutely. We intend rolling that out as a legal entitlement, and that will bite on local services. Local authorities are going to have to budget, rather than agreeing to put something in a plan and then dodging the responsibility for paying for it. If parents are legally entitled to request provision—local services will not know which parents will request it—local services will have to budget for that. We expect that services will be provided on the ground, but we need to test the system with pilots to ensure that there is a bite on all services. We want to ensure that all families get the services that they have been promised, and do not find themselves in the same position as before, where something would be written in section 3 or 5 of a statement but not be provided by local health services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) has spoken on a number of occasions about the frustration of teachers. He said that it is not only parents who are frustrated; teachers often feel inadequately prepared to work with children with a range of additional specialist needs. However, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West told us that one inspirational teacher made the difference for her child. That is the point. We hear many fantastic examples of professionals who lead practice, but even one professional who believes in a child and who takes responsibility can make such a difference. They can be teachers or other professionals with whom the family come into contact. That kind of practice needs to be much more common, which is why we propose improving initial teacher training. We will use both special and mainstream schools for teaching purposes to ensure that professionals learn from the good practice of others. We will also focus on continuing professional development, using both online specialist material, some of which was launched last week, and scholarship funds to ensure that teachers and teaching assistants have access to funds to gain a greater specialism.

The point about teaching assistants is new; we have a new way of thinking about their role. As many families know, teaching assistants often have more experience than the classroom teacher of working with children with additional needs. By giving them an opportunity to develop their career, we may well bring to the teaching profession many more individuals who have a real background, interest and focus on this subject.

Let me touch on the issue of choice, to which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West and my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall referred. The point about trying to reverse the bias is exactly about choice. If there is currently a bias in one direction or another, that is not about choice. The focus of our Green Paper is on improving choice for families, so that they can make decisions about what is best for their child. Too often, however, it ends up being Hobson’s choice, because they feel that the mainstream school does not have the capability to support their child. That is why we want a focus on teacher training and the Achievement for All pilot.

I want to focus on Achievement for All and to pick up the point about over-diagnosis raised by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea). Achievement for All is a pilot programme that ran in 10 local authorities and 450 schools. Schools and parents found that it substantially increased the attainment of children in schools. That was true in special schools, in which children might have highly complex needs and a statement, and in mainstream schools, in which children might be on school action or school action plus. The improvement in attainment stemmed from the quality of the interaction between the school and parents, and between teachers and the child.

Under the pilot, there is a greater focus on setting goals, on monitoring the attainment of those goals and on sharing information with families and making sure that they are involved in their child’s attainment. Head teachers said that when they used the programme it changed their mindset; it was about not money, but attitude. That attitude affected not just the children with whom teachers were working on the SEN register, but all the children in the school who had additional needs.

Some Members implied that we were arbitrarily taking children off the SEN register. Though the powers of Government are great, they are not great enough to mandate the press to report what we say accurately. Unfortunately, the press like to write about numbers. They multiplied our figures and came up with a large number that may or may not be our target. I was very clear with them at the press briefing, as I have been clear with them since, that the Government do not have a target for the number of children they want off the SEN register. What we want is schools to work with children to ensure they fulfil their potential.

When Achievement for All was rolled out in some schools, it was found that the increase in attainment was so great that children no longer needed to be on the SEN register. Surely that should be welcomed by everybody. This is not about arbitrarily reducing numbers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

6. What support statemented children will receive under his proposals for the assessment of children with special educational needs; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Green Paper announced that by 2014 we will replace special educational needs statements with a single assessment process and an education, health and care plan. The new plans will keep the same legal entitlements to provision as SEN statements and will build on statements with a commitment from all parties, including health and social care, to provide their services. We will be running pathfinders testing out the single assessment and plans from September.

[Dan Rogerson]

Families will welcome the progress towards a simpler, single assessment system. Will my hon. Friend reassure families and parents that their protection under the current statementing system will continue under a single process?

[Sarah Teather]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is indeed the case, but I hope that we will have an improved process, because all parties will come together to do the assessment, and then agree a plan and how to pay for it. I hope that that will improve the situation for families who have to move between one service and another to try to persuade someone to pay for something, such as speech and language therapy, which happens all too often.

Disadvantaged Children

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

I congratulate the hon. Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Salisbury (John Glen) on securing this debate. I offer the House a heartfelt apology for arriving a few minutes late and missing the beginning of the former’s speech. I am always very particular about being on time, and I am extremely embarrassed that I missed that.

This has been a fantastic debate—really, really interesting. The tone has been very good. Listening to enormous expertise, often from new Members, gives me great hope that the issue of disadvantaged children will continue to be championed by all parties. It is clear that we want a sustainable solution to this problem. The fact that there is so much interest, especially among new Members on both sides of the House, gives me great hope that we shall achieve that.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire closed his speech with the key points on which we need to focus—life chances, the quality of the home environment and better evidence. His remarks set the scene and his themes were picked up by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) rightly stressed that the issue has preoccupied Governments for a long time. It is a difficult problem to tackle and it requires complex solutions. The Government are extremely grateful for his report, as we are for the interim report by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which was published yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman made the point that, too often, the life race is over by five. Early years are life-changing, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, and we need a holistic approach to tackling the issues that arise from that.

My hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) spoke about the importance of quality teaching and its role in improving self-esteem. The hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) made several interesting and important points, including the need for us to focus on runaway children. The Government take that issue seriously, and I hope to assure her that the Department for Education is already working on the report that was recently produced by Barnardo’s. She also raised some important points about the performance framework. The Government want to move more to an outcomes focus rather than an inputs focus, and we are working with the sector and local authorities to try to define that performance framework. We want to pilot payment by results to try to incentivise the use of evidence-based programmes—the kind of evidence-based programmes that were illustrated in the report from the hon. Member for Nottingham North.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) spoke with great expertise from her perspective as a family lawyer. She made one point that caught my attention about the need, when working with someone with a drug or alcohol problem, to look holistically at the family and not deal only with the person presenting a problem. That was picked up in the Government’s drug strategy.

My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) raised the issue of parents and relationships. What we know from the evidence is that there are several pinch points of enormous stress in relationships, especially when young—or older—couples have their first child. Without wanting to preach about how families organise themselves, the Government will make that the focus of their relationship support. It is a tragedy when a relationship breaks down because the support is not available to allow people to get over difficulties, or they are not equipped to do so. The Government have invested £7.5 million a year across this comprehensive spending review period and, in addition, have given £500,000 to the voluntary sector to train Sure Start children’s centres practitioners to help to identify these issues.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—I always enjoy listening to her, even if I do not always agree with her—made several important points about parenting skills, an issue that was also picked up by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah). The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston will be well aware—she has raised the issue with me before in Education questions—that parenting programmes are an important part of Sure Start children’s centres, and some of the evidence-based programmes that the hon. Member for Nottingham North was picking up yesterday highlight that issue in particular. However, the solutions do not always have to be formal. Several hon. Members spoke about the role of parent-toddler groups, and such peer support can be important for parents who can pick up skills and techniques for dealing with issues as they arise.

The hon. Member for Slough made several interesting points, but a debate began in her speech about the importance of male role models—something that the Government take seriously. Indeed, the coalition document states that we want to increase the number of men in early education. It is a very complicated problem to solve. It is as much about the esteem of early-years practitioners as any of the other reasons picked up by hon. Members during the debate. The Government have started a new programme based on Teach First called New Leaders in Early Years, which is intended to pick up graduates. We hope that it will entice young men to enter the early-years profession for different reasons and target some more academic approaches, which would kill two birds with one stone in terms of what we are trying to do on quality in early years.

The hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) spoke about the role of the big society, and may I congratulate him on fulfilling his maiden speech pledge already? It must be a world record.

The quality of the debate has been extremely high. As Members on both sides have said, it is unacceptable that in the 21st century, and in one of the richest countries in the world, the circumstances of a person’s birth, rather than their ability, dictate their outcomes in life. We know that unfortunately many poor families struggle with the basics, while the wealthiest, who often live just a few streets away, can get on in life. Some children never achieve their potential because of the barriers that are thrown in their way, while their wealthier neighbours clear hurdles with ease. I see that in my own constituency.

The barriers that children face, often very early in life, affect their life chances for ever. Again I see this, I am afraid, in my own constituency. There is the staggering statistic that a child born in Harlesden, in the heart of my constituency, is likely to die, on average, more than 10 years earlier than a child born in Kensington, which is just a few miles away. Many Members commented on the fact that there are complicated relationships between the different elements of disadvantage, and very complicated relationships between that and income. Income is extremely important, but it is not the only problem, and if we are to tackle this in the long term we need to consider the causes and factors other than income.

[Dan Rogerson]

Hon. Members have drawn to the House’s attention particular issues concerning those in the care system and children who are themselves carers. I would like to add a group that has not been mentioned: those in kinship care arrangements with grandparents, parents, siblings or other relatives. We need to do more, and encourage local authorities to do more, to ensure that they are given the support that those who foster, for example, get.

[Sarah Teather]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Eileen Munro is considering that as part of her review of social care. We need to encourage local authorities to think about all the options for kinship care, including with grandparents, before a child is taken into care.

I said that income is vital, and the fact that the Government recognise that is spelt out in the coalition agreement, which states that we will meet the targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010. However, we intend to do it with a slightly different focus from the previous Government. We want to put a lot of effort into trying to tackle the underlying issues affecting a child’s life and, in particular, the entrenched disadvantage that gets passed from one generation to another. The interim report from the hon. Member for Nottingham North made clear just how vital intervening early is. For those who have not seen his interim report, let me say that the front cover contains a scan of a child’s brain at a very young age, and already we can see how things are hardwired—that was picked up by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). The need to intervene early is precisely why the Government have invested extra money in disadvantaged two-year-olds. We know that quality early education at that stage makes a huge difference.

The hon. Member for Slough picked up on a point about what happens with poorer children when they mix with children from other backgrounds. It demonstrates the reasons I felt strongly that we needed to extend the early-years free entitlement from 12.5 hours to 15 hours and to continue with that despite the difficult circumstances. That universal offer for three and four-year-olds is extremely important. The quality of social mixing makes a big difference to a child’s chances. I hope that bringing that down to all disadvantaged two-year-olds will make a significant difference to children’s lives. Indeed, we intend to legislate to make that an entitlement in the education Bill that will be published shortly.

Similarly, it is vital that Sure Start is accessible to all, but we need a better focus on disadvantaged families. As I said just a minute ago in response to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, we intend to use payment by results to ensure that we focus on using evidence-based programmes better. That is also why we have invested extra money in health visitors, because outreach is vital, as was pointed out earlier. We need to ensure that we get to those families in difficulty, bringing them into centres so that we can focus the extra help and evidence-based programmes that we are using on them. My colleagues in the Department of Health have also announced extra investment in the family nurse partnership, a fantastic scheme that has had good results and shown promise, particularly in working with young families.

The Government have also asked Dame Clare Tickell to review the early-years foundation stage, to see whether we can simplify some of the burdens, but retain all the quality, because it has done so much to improve outcomes for young people at that age, and also to think about how we can get services to work more closely together. That is already the focus of some of her thinking, as she looks at how we can utilise other health professionals to ensure that we serve the most disadvantaged children best. That focus on narrowing the gap is also why the Government feel so strongly that we need to invest in the pupil premium, and there will be an extra £2.5 billion for schools by the end of the spending review period to ensure that we can focus on the most disadvantaged children.

I am running out of time, and there are many more points that I would like to respond to. I am extremely grateful to hon. Members for their contributions to this very good debate. I hope that there will be many more opportunities to debate the issue over the course of the Parliament, because the ideas that we have heard, particularly from those with expertise in this area, are helpful to us in formulating policy.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Sarah Teather

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

These schools have expressed an interest in finding out more information. We have never said that they have applied to become academies. It is important to make that clear.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am struck by the fact that certain hon. Members, on Second Reading—I think we will hear this again during our deliberations in Committee—said that this is a fundamental and huge shift and that the Government are seeking to push all schools down a particular route. The Minister is now saying that perhaps many of them are not interested in this and just want to find out a bit more about it. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways—either it is a massive shift or it will be a case of a few schools exploring it at this point.

[Sarah Teather]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A lot of straw men have been built up in order to knock them down.

If we think that it is a good thing for special schools to have access to freedoms to run their school in the way that is best for the children in their care, I cannot see why we would say that they should not do that. A prime example is that academies will have flexibility around the school day and how they organise the school calendar. I have found that many parents of disabled children and people who work with disabled children say that the most difficult period of the year is the long summer holiday. If we can provide special schools with flexibility, they may or may not choose to rearrange their calendar so that they break up the terms and holidays in a different way and run the school day differently to lessen the pressures on parents. That seems a sensible thing to do.